Travel vs the Internet

I’ve explained to many people in the past year why I don’t like travel. This summarizes my main reasons:

It costs lots of transportation time, both getting to and from the destination, as well as local transportation at the destination.

Costs money.

Stress of booking flights/hotels and keeping constant track of time to not miss such flights and connections, etc.

Nonzero chance of being stranded or catching some unusual disease.

In addition, famous landmarks/cities give me roughly zero enjoyment or value. If I’ve already seen something in a history book or website, know about its historical significance, and have seen many pictures of it including in pop culture like movies or TV shows or even in video games, I feel like I gain nothing from visiting it in person.

The main thing I actually do like about travel is that you get to explore new places, ideas, and cultures. Which is why I think browsing the internet is just a better version of traveling. In addition to the exploration of new things, it doesn’t have any of the negatives mentioned above:

Transportation is on the order of seconds or even fractions of a second spent loading web pages, rather than hours and hours on a plane or at an airport.

People generally already have computers and internet anyway, so it is free.

No stress of booking any flights/hotels, no deadlines/schedules.

You can’t get stranded on the internet or catch real life diseases.

If you get bored at any time, you go to a different page. You can expand your perspective in minutes by simply going to a forum or news site of a different ideological affiliation. You can learn things so much quicker. And so forth.

I’ve held this position against travel for roughly 7 years, though it’s definitely open for debate. Anyway, back to the internet!